“Tell me about that.”
“Oh, it’s about money—the usual thing. I got into a mess, and had to borrow some money of a Jew, and he got me to sign a paper, promising to pay after Squire Davenant’s death; he called it a post obit—I didn’t know what it was then, but I do now; for the squire got to hear of it, but how, hanged if I can make out; and he wrote to me and to the Jew, saying that he shouldn’t leave me a brass farthing. Of course the Jew was wild; but I gave him another sort of bill, and it’s all right.”
“Excepting that you will lose your fortune,” said Una, with a little sigh. “What will you do?”
“That’s a conundrum which I’ve long ago given up. By Jove! I’ll come and be a woodman in the forest!”
“Will you?” she said. “Do you really mean it?—no, you were not in earnest!”
“I—why shouldn’t I be in earnest?” he says, almost to himself. “Would you like me to? I mean shall I come here to—what do you call it—Warden?” and he threw himself down again.
“Yes,” she said; “I should like you to. Yes, that would be very nice. We could sit and talk when your work was done, and I could show you all the prettiest spots, and the places where the starlings make their nests, and the fairy rings in the glades, and you could tell me all that you have seen and done. Yes,” wistfully, “that would be very nice. It is so lonely sometimes!”
“Lonely, is it?” he said. “Lonely! By George, I should think it must be! I can’t realize it! Books, it reads like a book. If I were to tell some of my friends that there was a young lady shut up in a forest, outside of which she had never been, they wouldn’t believe me. By the way—where did you go to school?”
“School? I never went to school.”
“Then how—how did you learn to read? and—it’s awfully rude of me, you know, but you speak so nicely; such grammar, and all that.”
“Do I?” she said, thoughtfully. “I didn’t know that I did. My father taught me.”
“It’s hard to believe,” he said, as if he were giving up a conundrum. “I beg your pardon. I mean that your father would have made a jolly good schoolmaster, and I must be an awful dunce, for I’ve been to Oxford, and I’ll wager I don’t know half what you do, and as to talking—I am not in it.”
“Yes, my father is very clever,” she said; “he is not like the other woodmen and burners.”
“No, if he is, they must be a learned lot,” assented Jack; “yes, I think I had better come and live here, and get him to teach me. I’m afraid he wouldn’t undertake the job.”
“Father does not like strangers,” she said, blushing as she thought of the inhospitable scene of the preceding night. “He says that the world is a cruel, wicked place, and that everybody is unhappy there. But I think he must be wrong. You don’t look unhappy.”
“I am not unhappy now,” said Jack.
“I am so glad,” she said; “why are you not?”
“Because I am with you.”
“Are you?” she said, gently. “Then it must be because I am with you that I feel so happy.”
The Savage flushed and he looked down, striving to still the sudden throb of pleasure with which his heart beat.
“Confound it,” he muttered, “I must go! I can’t be such a cad as to stop any longer; she oughtn’t to say this sort of thing, and yet I—I can’t tell her so! No! I must go!” and he rose and took out his watch.
“I am afraid I must be on the tramp.”
“Yes,” she assented; “you have stayed too long. I hope you will find that the Squire Davenant has forgiven you. I think he cannot help it. And you will have your fortune and will go back into the world, and will quite forget that you lost your way in Warden Forest. But I shall not forget it; I shall often think of it.”
“No,” he said, “I shan’t forget it. But in case I should, will you give me something—no, I won’t ask it.”
“Why not?” she said, wonderingly. “Were you going to say, will I give you something to help you to remember?”
“Yes, I will. What shall I give you?” and she looked around.
Jack looked at her. His bad angel whispered in his ear, “Ask her to give you a kiss,” but Jack metaphorically kicked him out of hearing.
“Give me a flower,” he said, and his voice was as gentle as its deep ringing bass could be.
Una nodded, and plucking a dog rose held it out to him.
“There,” she said; “at least you will remember it as long as the rose lasts. But it soon dies,” and she sighed.
Jack took it and looked at it hard. Then he put it to his lips.
“There is no smell to a dog rose,” said Una.
“Ah no! I forgot. Just so. Well, good-by. We may shake hands, Una. That is your name, isn’t it? How do you spell it?”
“U—n—a,” she said, giving him her hand.
“It’s a pretty name,” he said, looking at her.
“Is it?” she said, dreamily. “Yes, I think it is, now. Say it again.”
“Una, good-by. We shall meet again.”
“Do you think so? Then you will have to come to Warden again.”
“And I will. I will come soon. Oh, yes, we shall meet again. Good-by,” and, yielding to the temptation, he bent and touched her hand—Heaven knows, reverently enough—with his lips.
A warm flush spread over the girl’s face and neck, and she quivered from head to foot. It was the first kiss—except those of her father and mother—that she had ever received.
“Good-by,” he repeated, and was slowly relinquishing her hand, the hand that clung to his, when a hand of firmer texture was laid on his arm and swung him round.
It was Gideon Rolfe, his face white with passion, his eyes ablaze, and a heavy stick upraised.
The Savage had just time to step back to avoid the blow and plant his feet firmly to receive a renewed attack; but with an effort the old man restrained himself, and struggling for speech, motioned the girl away with one hand and pointed with the other to Jack.
“You scoundrel!” he gasped, hoarsely. “Go, Una, go. You scoundrel! I warmed you at my hearth, you viper! and you turn to sting me. Go, Una—go at once. Do you disobey me?”
White and trembling, the girl shrank into the shade.
“You villain!” went on the old man, struggling with his passion.
“Stop!” exclaimed Jack, the veins in his forehead swelling ominously. “You must be mad! Don’t strike me!—you are an old man!”
“Strike you! No, no; blows are of no avail with such as you! Curs take no heed of blows! What other way can one punish the scoundrel who repays hospitality by treachery? Was it not enough that you forced your way into my house, broke my bread, but you must waylay a credulous girl and lead her in the first step to ruin. Oh, spare your breath, viper! I know you and your race too well. Ruin and desolation walk hand in hand with you; but you have reckoned without your host here. My knowledge of you arms me with power to protect a weak, innocent girl from your wiles. Scoundrel!”
“You use strong words,” he said, and his voice was low and hoarse. “You are an old man and—you are her father. You call me a scoundrel; I call you a fool, for if I were half the scoundrel you think me,